


A Changed Man

by Goldenbuttons



Series: Changes [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-12
Updated: 2012-10-12
Packaged: 2017-11-16 03:24:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/534952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldenbuttons/pseuds/Goldenbuttons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock didn't like to think about feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Changed Man

Sherlock Holmes was not prone to introspection or reflection. The things that mattered to him could be empirically demonstrated. Like caring, self reflection was not an advantage.

On this day however, Sherlock allowed himself a little self indulgence. Returning to Baker Street from the top secret top security facility in which Sebastian Moran would spend the rest of his life, he could not help but reflect on the changes in his life since that day when Mike Stamford had introduced him to his flatmate, and even more so since he had “died” and then returned.

Once, reason was his only friend. There was no place in his life for any kind of sentiment. On that first case, when he and John had sought, found and killed the killer cabbie, he had caught himself preening under John’s praise. Never before had praise been so welcome. Under the warmth of John’s obvious admiration, Sherlock had thawed. He still wasn’t sentimental, but he had a friend, and that changed everything. He had tried at first to tell himself that the work was the only thing that mattered, and that John was important only because he had become a part of the work, but by the time he stood with Moriarty on top of St Bart’s and heard his threats against John (and Lestrade and Mrs Hudson, but principally against John), Sherlock knew that he had changed.

The year and a half, the seventeen and a half months, the 572 days, that he had been away from John had taught him that although caring could be a weakness, it could also be an amazing motivator. It was the thought of coming home, to John, to Baker Street, that had motivated him when he despaired of ever wiping out Moriarty’s web of crime.

When he returned, he still had two of Moriarty’s team to destroy. He had expected to immediately dislike Cathy, how could he possibly approve of this woman who had taken advantage of John’s loneliness and vulnerability? It was only when he heard of her part in Sally Donovan’s disgrace, and when she had helped them on their trip to Blackpool that he grudgingly started to feel some respect for her. 

And it was to please John and Cathy that he had made this trip today. To visit Sebastian Moran, a man he had hoped to never see again, and to help ‘persuade’ him to plead guilty to the crimes of the murder of Sally Donovan and the attempted murder of John Watson, and to publicly state that when he killed Sally, she had not been the target, but John. Even though they all knew that Moran had aimed to silence Sally, John and Cathy had soft hearts, and had been worried that Sally’s parents would be devastated to learn the truth about their daughter. So, to preserve their image of their daughter as a heroine, a police officer gunned down in the performance of her duty, to hide from them the truth that she had been a criminal, that she had agreed to kill her boss had Sherlock not jumped, that she had in fact moved to Blackpool to escape the disgrace of her unprofessional language and conduct, for these reasons, Sherlock had visited Sebastian Moran. He got no pleasure from seeing the man in prison, from knowing that he would never be released. If Sherlock had had his way, Moran would have been shot, just as he had planned to shoot John, just as he had shot Sally. Sherlock would have been happy to pull the trigger, but he knew that John would be disappointed in him if he did that. So instead, he had accompanied Mycroft on a journey out of London, and there they had persuaded Moran to make his false statement. He would never be released, but his life imprisonment could be hard, or it could be very hard. Faced with the option of a little more comfort, and a little less harsh treatment, Moran had agreed.

Sherlock reflected that four years ago he would have laughed at anyone who settled for a lie to ease someone else’s heartache. Even two years ago he would have hesitated. He had changed; when John and Cathy had talked earlier in the week of the pain the Donovan family were suffering, he had firstly scoffed, but the next day he approached Mycroft (another thing he would never have done before) and arrangements had been made.

Sherlock thought that he probably wouldn’t tell John and Cathy how he had spent his day. It wouldn’t do for them to think he had become sentimental!


End file.
